Eva Bouchard's house in Péribonka

Quebec, Louis Hémon, and Maria Chapdelaine

Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine grew from his views as a French immigrant writer on the rural life of early twentieth-century Quebec.
The cover of The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort

Dr. Sex and the Anarchist Sex Cookbook

Known for his runaway bestseller The Joy of Sex, Alex “Dr. Sex” Comfort was an anarchist and a pacifist who preferred love and sex to war crimes.
Portrait of L.M. Montgomery

L. M. Montgomery’s Plain Jane

Though not as well known as Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery's Jane of Lantern Hill also explores domesticity, freedom, and, yes, Prince Edward Island.
Sejarah Melayu, or Malay Annals

The Princess Brides of the Malay Annals

Narratives about women as gift objects in classical literature show the power dynamics of trade and diplomacy in the early modern Malay world.
The Penguin logo on the cover of a paperback in 1944

But Why a Penguin?

Penguin Books built on an already strong tradition of branding through cute mascot “media stars” when they introduced their cartoon bird in 1935.
"Noah Webster, The Schoolmaster of the Republic," print by Root & Tinker, 1886

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.

A Garden of Verses

As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets.
The covers of Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans and How do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology

Searching for Home in Hmong American Writing

Two significant poetry anthologies deterritorialize home, showing that for Hmong Americans, home can be a process of moving and running despite living in a place.
The covers of the book Erasure by Percival Everett and the film American Fiction

The Indelible Lessons of Erasure

A Percival Everett fan weighs in on the novelist’s approach to racial satire and considers the translation of Erasure to the big screen in American Fiction.
The covers of Partition by Saadat Hasan Manto, Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris, The Flew by Carlos Eire, Running While Black by Alison Mariella Désir, Living the Beatles Legend by Kenneth Womack, and The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris

What We’re Reading 2023

Enjoy a fresh batch of year-end book reports from all of the readers, writers, and editors at JSTOR Daily!